A while ago, I posted a blog entry about a free software giveaway we were planning for the UK online developer launch event. As I haven't said much about it since you may wonder if it's actually going ahead. Well have no fear, yes it's absolutely going ahead.

Our thinking has moved on a bit since we first dreamed up the concept but it's still pretty much what we originally had in mind. It looks like this:

We will be giving 1000 copies of Windows Vista Ultimate, and 1000 copies of Office Professional 2007 to developers who take part in our online launch event

What do we mean by “take part”? On Friday 19th January we will broadcast the keynote live, then make all of the technical sessions available for viewing online at the same time as they’re happening here at our office in Reading. You don’t need to register to watch or download these. At some point on Friday 19th we’ll open up a registration site for the software giveaway – in order to be eligible people will have to answer one question relating to the Windows Vista track (to be in line for a copy of Windows Vista) and one relating to the Office track (to be in line for a copy of Office). While the questions are fairly easy if you’ve watched the sessions, they will be difficult if you haven’t. Assuming you answer the question correctly, and are one of the first 1000 people to do so, you’ll get a free copy. Obviously if you answer both questions correctly and are one of the first 1000 of each, you could get both products

What are the caveats? Not many: You need to have a UK address for us to ship the product to, and we’ll only ship the product when we have it, which could be some time after January (ie it won’t be immediate). Other fairly standard T&Cs apply.

As for why we're doing this - developers are vitally important to us, and vitally important to me too (I'm in the Developer & Platform group in Microsoft, the part of the organisation that focuses on software developers). We wanted to make sure that as many of you as possible get your hands on these products so that you can start to experience them and build applications on top of them. This seemed a reasonable way to achieve that.

It isn't something we undertook lightly either, and did involve some people from the high reaches of the organisation in Redmond when the decision was made to do it, but it was really good to see that everyone involved immediately saw the value of developers and enthusiastically supported what we're trying to achieve.

As I said before....we love developers 🙂

Oh and PS: You may wonder why we're making you answer a question to be eligible. Pretty simply, this is to ensure that as far as possible only people who are developers and have a genuine interest in development on these platforms are eligible.

To James: You need to watch as much as you can, I can’t really say more than that. Sorry, I know it won’t be ideal for everybody. The sessions are available for viewing any time of course, so you could watch them later, we don’t know how quickly we’ll rack up the 1000 figure

To Ian: All of this only applies to the online launch, which has no ceiling. The physical event is full, but every above doesn’t apply to the physical event.

Sorry if this is mentioned somewhere (I did take a look at this post and comments in addition to the entry linked to at the start but couldn’t find it), but will registration be required in advance for attending the on-line launch or can it be a sort of ‘spur of the moment’ thing?

Hi Angus, I did sneak it into the middle of a block of text on the above post: "You don’t need to register to watch or download these". But it was probably easy to miss so thanks for raising it.

So the answer is that no pre-registration is required, and in fact we won’t require you to tell us anything about yourself in order to watch the videos. Just turn up and watch.

We will need your details if you register for the software of course (we need to know where to send it if you’re one of the first 1000).

So you might ask "does that mean I’ll get spammed to death if I tell you my details when registering for the software? Is this just a cunning Microsoft scheme to get a whole load of contact details?". The answer is no, if you indicate that you don’t want us to contact you – and there will be an option to do so – we absolutely won’t. You wouldn’t believe how strict our policies are on this, if you tick that box there’s no way on earth anyone will be using your details other than to send the software if you’re eligible.

Yeah when I went to the TechNet EVO Launch I was kind of suprised there was no WiFi considering it was kind of a big event, I guess apart from the security issues there’s also less Tech Bloggers going to these events, most people who like to blog about these events live will go to the US ones. It’s definetly time to start seeing more things like this happening over here.

The IT Services people who run the facility are pretty draconian when it comes to security as you’d want them to be. However I agree with you this is something we need and I’ll definitely pass your comments to the team. I believe there is a plan in place to make this available generally but there’s no harm in pushing the wheel around a bit. It won’t happen for this event but we may see it happen in future.

Note that most the of US conferences that offer this are pay-for events. If we start running pay-for events here it will be a definite requirement.

If you visit the launch site (ie http://www.microsoft.com/uk/launch2007/dev) on 19th Jan a link to the keynote will appear, and links to the sessions will be put up immediately after the keynote. These are WMV files, you will be able to either stream them or download them.

I did ask previously whether I need to install any software in order to view the broadcast but you never answered this question.

What software and which versions (operating system and application program) must I have installed on a machine in order to stream the WMV files and view them ?

Windows XP Media Centre Edition ?

Windows Media Player running under Windows XP ?

Is it too late to arrange for the sessions to be streamed onto the large screen in the Swimming Pool at Microsoft’s office in Great Pulteney Street in London as it is very easy for me to hop onto an underground train to the West End ?

Sorry I was vague in the original blog post, I wasn’t trying to be intentionally obtuse, it’s just that the exact details were being worked out at the time and I didn’t want to say something that turned out to be wrong.

See my reply to a comment on a later blog post, but to save you hunting here’s what I said:

"If it’s confusing for you then it probably is for others….so apologies for that.

You don’t need to pre-register for the online launch event so there’s nothing you need to do now. On the 19th, visit the launch website (www.microsoft.com/uk/launch2007/dev) and links will appear to the keynote and other sessions. Also, the competition link for the software will appear on the same site later in the day.

Hu Ian, many thanks for the help you give me with the registration process. I was at the event in reading and looked all over for you, everyone I asked if they had seen you said, oh he was over there a minute ago…..So never got to thank you personaly.

The Event was great the .Net one my fav, I met some great people there too, However they, we, all said the same thing, How come people at home get the chance to get both Vista and Office, and us who braved the winds and storms only get a choice of either Vista OR Office, we all thought that Microsoft were being a bit mean for the 500 or so attendee’s.

Anyhow, how are we to convice our yeams at work to up-grade to Vista and Office if we only have 1, I myself was planning to install them on my laptop and do some work (Something like the London Underground) and show them…..

All in All it was a great day, I had to cut short and not stay for the second day as the threats of more Gales were forcast so I had to do the 480 mile trip back.